Redshirt junior Jabbar Singleton registered a career high 15 points shooting at 56 percent against the Tigers.
Nikisun Shrestha/The Lion's Roar
The Lions men’s basketball team registered their ninth successful home win last night against the Jackson State Tigers with an 84-71 victory.
The game on Wednesday, Oct. 16 had an extra edge. The Lions lost by a big margin when they traveled to Jackson State last year.
“We went to Jackson State and just got hammered, poor effort, poor coaching the whole thing and we talked about that,” said Head Coach Jay Ladner. “We talked about how a good team will bounce back when they do take a loss; make the opponent pay for it, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Jackson State’s got a heck of a team.”
Senior Dominic Nelson, a center for the team, described the disappointing game last year and how the team wanted to turn things around this year.
“Last year we went up there,” said Nelson. “Like our coach said, we didn’t play too well at all. I had nightmares about that game last year, just the vibe was off, and everything was off. I just wanna thank the coach for getting us so well prepared. Like our coach said the first thing he put up on the board was pride. When you see that word, the look on everyone’s face changed, specially the players that played last year.”
The team was also sparked by the loss against Tulane and wanted to get a good result at home.
“I was so disappointed about the Tulane game,” said guard and redshirt junior Jabbar Singleton. “After we lost, everyone was disappointed. No words being spoken on the bus. By that time I knew we were gonna win this game.”
In this game, the team was missing some crucial players. Ladner credits the effort the rest of the team showed after the loss of some of their starting players.
“This was a signature win because of the circumstances,” said Ladner. “You saw five of the Southeastern players, four of them potential starters that are out. These guys put a lot of hard work in, a lot of effort and have a lot of times been dealt a tough hand, but have never made excuses.”
Sophomore Forward Moses Greenwood was one of those players who stepped up in place of injured Jordan Capps.
“I knew I had to come in and kinda do what he did, that’s rebound and get putbacks and stuff like that,” said Greenwood. “It was a good game for the whole team.”
The game saw five players recording double figure scores. Sophomore guard Marlain Veal continued his form scoring 22 points in the game, making it his third straight game with double figure. Nelson had his first career double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Singleton and junior guard Eddy Polanco also had career highs with 15 and 12 points respectively while Greenwood had 16 points in this game.
Ladner hopes with victories like this, the basketball program becomes a successful one and he also expresses his desire to make the fans proud of their team.
“We’re in the process of trying to change the culture here and the expectations,” said Ladner. “We talk all the time that our fans are hungry, you know they wanna have a good basketball program and we wanna be able to deliver that.”
The Lions have their next game against Xavier of Louisiana on Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. at the University Center.
The fans came out in numbers at the University Center to support their team who were coming back from a loss against Tulane.
Nikisun Shrestha/The Lion's Roar
Sophomore Marlain Veal, # 0, steals the ball from the opponent. He had six assists to go with his two steals the Jackson State Tigers.
Nikisun Shrestha/The Lion's Roar
Freshman Michael Corchiani, #12, had to step up in place of some missing starters against Jackson State.
Nikisun Shrestha/The Lion's Roar
Junior Davon Hayes had nine rebounds in the game. He had to take responsibilty of being tough on the boards in place of some of the missing Lions.
Nikisun Shrestha/The Lion's Roar
